Family Updates

Well here it is heading into the major holiday season. I am one week away from being completely done with school, then it will be time to focus on board exams.

Liz - keeping up with her schedule will kill anyone. On Saturday she had her winter Casper Youth Orchestra Concert (no pictures were aloud to be taken) then this week we are focusing on the final production of her church Christmas play. This takes place on Dec. 6-9 so these will be some long nights. She brought home a straight A report card and got moved to advance social studies last week. Now if we could work on organizational skills we would be doing great. I guess I should just be lucky that I have such great kids.

Mikaela - also pulling all A's in school. Her schedule has slowed down for the holiday season as well. She is ready for mom to be done with school.

Ken - is deciding PTO is not all that it is cracked up to be, he enjoys it but it would be better if other people pulled their own weight.

This weekend will be our town holiday parade that yes of course my children are in. The PTO (the drumming circle) is doing a Cat in the Hat theme with all the drummers and other school members. We will be celebrating Thanksgiving with just the 5 of us but with all of you in our thoughts and prayers. We celebrated an early Thanksgiving with Dennis and Debbie and family on the 15 of Nov.

Love to all!

Football Ball

Natrona County High School does a winter dance called the "Football Ball". Xenia got invited to the dance by another exchange student. I have to say she does not get into dressing up and doing the "girly" thing. We encouraged her to find a dress and go. She went to the Harshman's house to try on some of the girls dresses they had and found nothing that she liked. When her dad arrived he loaded Xenia and I into the car to go on a dress hunt. It took all but 5 minutes. The one she chose was the first one we picked out. What a blast! As for the dance she was not very impressed:( But looked good anyway!

Visitor from Germany

With great delight we opened our doors to Xenia's dad. It was a very short visit but a nice one at that. During his time here we had an American Steak Dinner and Poor Boys, then he went shopping with the Anthony's for evening gown for his daughter to go to "football Ball" with a gentleman here also as an exchange student. Lorenze was a pleasure to have and we hope to have him return soon:)

Sleeping Beauty and her Guard Dog

Just a cute picture to share of Mikaela and her Guard dog. What a team they make. This is a nightly routine for the two of them.

Going Gold

Mikaela tested out of her white belt last week. She is now a Gold and black stripe belt in Tae Kwan Do.

HAPPY 25TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY!

Deb and Dennis celebrate 25 years together this past weekend. We were able to join the suprise celebration. The biggest suprise for them was their daughter Rachel showing up from Oregon.

Congratulations!!!!

Look who is Driving!!

So after a little bit of trick or treating...we were on the road again. Dad thought he would be cute and let Liz take the wheel for awhile!! Mom was a little nervous....Okay a lot nervous. 80 miles an hour down the highway at night...what was he thinking. She did very well and we are all still alive.

Halloween

What an awesome Halloween this year. The weather was absolutely beautiful. We were all set to travel to Denver for another weekend trip. My niece and Melissa made arrangements for a surprise 25th wedding anniversary for Deb and Dennis. You can always tell who does not have children because it was set for Halloween weekend. After telling some good friends that our children would not be trick or treating because we would be on the road to Denver we got the "lecture". The one about the kids having to trick or treat because it is the prime of their child hood. Sooooo.....we decided they were right and with this being Xenia's first Halloween in the US we better let them go door to door. With that being said we found a nice neighborhood in Douglas (1 hour from Casper). What a great area!!! It was the way Halloween should be. The people were sitting out on the porches and neighbors were hanging out chatting, and nobody cared how old you were. All 3 girls and 2 dogs had a blast. The laughter was so heavy I was suprised no one wet themselves. Here are some fun pics.